The Ashes
by Peetaismydreamman
Summary: MY VERSION OF WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE CAPITOL FALLS Katniss has to pull herself out of her sadness and find comfort... Gonna rate M cuz I plan on making it...interesting.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

_Characters belong to Suzanne Collins, even though I wish Peeta was mine._

_I used some of the ideas from the end of Mockingjay as well._

As soon as I open my eyes, I wish I hadn't. I hurry to shut them again. I keep them closed and play out the events in my head. _My name is Katniss Everdeen. I survived the Hunger Games. I started the rebellion without even knowing it. I became the Mockingjay. We took the Capitol. I killed Coin. President Snow is dead. Prim is dead. _

Now is when the what-ifs start. What if I hadn't volunteered for tribute? Prim could have still been alive. I don't really believe this for one second, but wasn't the point of me volunteering to keep her alive? To not have to watch my little sister die? I watched her die, along with hundreds of others because I volunteered. What if I had just swallowed the nightlock? Finnick would still be alive. Cinna. Boggs, Leeg 1 and 2, Mags, Darius, Marge, countless others.

I force my eyes open and take in the familiar scene. White walls, my arms in restraints, the tubes and needles and morphling. There is no one else here. I don't know who I would expect to see, maybe Haymitch, or Plutarch, more likely someone sent to kill me. I don't know why I'm here in the hospital after killing Coin. The rebels must be in an uproar. Who's side is the right one? The President of 13 who organized the Rebellion or the girl on fire? It's ironic that Cinna named me the girl on fire, and I actually was. The fact that I laugh to myself confirms that I have a pretty steady stream of morphling running through my veins. If my hands were free, I doubt I would rip the tube out though; the feeling of numbness is welcoming.

After what seems like forever, I am transferred from my room by someone I don't know to a hovercraft. I don't know where I'm going, I don't even know if I care. Probably something to do with murdering Coin. Once I'm pulled up, I see Haymitch. "We're going home." That's all he says, which is fine with me. He drops me off at my house in the Victors Circle, and I wander inside and fall asleep on the couch.

Greasy Sae wakes me up in the morning and she makes me breakfast. I force some down, and once I've eaten what I can, I stay sitting for a while. I must have fallen asleep again because it is late afternoon when Haymitch stumbles in through the front door. "This letter is from your mother" he says. Obviously, he expects me to open it now, with him standing there over me. "There's no point in delaying what you already know Katniss". Stupid Haymitch. Can't he see I'm in pain? It's like he hears my thoughts before they even form, because the next thing he says is "You've got to get yourself together. You're too young to carry your pain on your shoulders every moment of your life. Unless you want to end up like me Sweatheart". His smile is quite as sarcastic as usual, as if there's real pain in his words.

I think for a second and reach for the letter. It's short and to the point, she knows me well enough that she assumes I already knew what she would do. In the back of my mind I expected it, and I knew she wouldn't be able to come back to 12. Not yet anyway. I know why, and the last thing I need is my mother to shut down as she did after my father's death. As I remember how she was at that time, and how much I despised her for what she did, I finally see exactly what I need to do. I was always stronger than my mother, and Prim would never have wanted me to live such a tortured life as I have been. Haymitch is gone when I surface from my revelation. Small steps, I tell myself. I help Greasy Sae with dinner when she comes. We don't say anything, but I know she's glad to see me up. When she leaves, I'm tired again and try to fall asleep, if that's what you can call it.  
It's like my dreams were trying to break my new-found will to live. I replay so many deaths that night. Their screams surround me, intensifying he fact that I can't save them. Before I wake up, the last images I see are Gale, being taken away by the capitol peace keepers. I search for Peeta. I see Prim. The explosion of the bombs jar me awake.

What happened to Gale? To Peeta? As soon as I was able, I was sent to execute Snow. No one had told me anything, and revenge was too strong in my heart to remember to ask. Someone had to pay for Prim's death, and Snow's words "I'm afraid we have both been played for a food" were heavy on my mind. That's why Coin had to die too.

I don't wait for Greasy Sae and breakfast before I run out of the house and burst through Haymitch's front door. It takes me several minutes to wake him, and several more minutes to get him into a state where he will talk to me. I ask him about Gale. He informs me that Gale broke free of the Peacekeepers when the bombs went off. He was on the front line when they took The Capitol completely. He sustained a few minor injuries, nothing serious, and decided to stay in 2, where he had accepted a job with Beetee. "So he's not coming back either? I ask.

"Did you really think he would?" is his all too simple reply. No. I know why he didn't come back. His bombs killed helped kill Prim. It wasn't his fault directly, he didn't know that would happen when he was designing them. But he knows me. He knows I would never be able to look into his eyes without a flash of hatred, of question, emitting from my eyes. He knows we can never be together in the way he had dreamt of, our relationship would probably never return to the way it was.

"Peeta?" I ask, my voice is barely above a whisper, scared to hear the answer. I knew how unstable he was. Without his handcuffs and with a nightlock pill. How could I have left him like that? Haymitch says nothing, and I search his face. How much time has passed? 6 seconds? 2 minutes? 10 minutes? It seems like an eternity before he finally speaks. "Why don't you ask him yourself?" What does that mean? I look around and find Peeta standing at the door. "Hey Katniss."

I look at the boy standing before me. His skin is pink like mine. I can't imagine how hard it must be for him now. To go from the boy before our first Hunger Games together, who's innocence all but killed him, to the boy that stood before me now. He lost a leg, his mind, his beautiful body ruined by fire and torture. All for what? Me? Yes. I want to run into his arms right then. To comfort him. To comfort me. But what do I do? Stand there, my mouth frozen and my feet glued to the floor. "Well, it's good to see you out of the hospital. Glad you're home" Peeta says before he walks back out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

_Again, characters belong to Suzanne Collins, she is a genius. _

**Chapter 2**

"Real smooth sweetheart." Haymitch drawls. "I've told you before, and I'll tell you again, you could live a million years and never find a man like him. And I'll tell you another thing. You still wo-"

"Yeah yeah yeah" I cut him off as I stride out the door "I still wouldn't deserve him". I know that just as well as he does. I can only hope that Peeta still feels differently.

When I get back to my house in the Victors Village, it feels so empty I decide to take a walk, try to figure some things out. It was always Peeta, right? I don't know what's wrong with me, why I have to question myself so much. Would I do that if I felt it had come naturally? Instead of halfway forced on me by the Hunger Games, the Capitol, then the Rebellion….

I wish that my feelings were easier to sort out. It should be simple right? Either I love him or I don't? I finally look up after walking for what seems like a lifetime, only to find myself in front of the bakery. I shift my gaze back down quickly and keep walking, perhaps at a faster place. I finally come to the revelation that I need to try and find out exactly what my feelings are towards Peeta, and the sooner the better. I owe that much to him. If I find that I do really truly 'love' him, which I never thought I was capable of after my fathers death, and especially after Prim's, he needs to know. I want him to be happy, I've decided, whether if be with me or with someone else. If I come to find that now the Hunger Games are over, the Rebellion is over, that the luster of our love as the "Star-Crossed Lovers" has dimmed to resemble a chunk of coal, he needs to know that too.

I walk home and decide to write my mom a letter. I've never needed her for anything, or even wanted her help, but I feel when it comes to love, she's got one up on me. If she had to hide in a shell of herself after my father died, I at least feel like she had true love with my father.

_Mom,_

_I hope this letter finds you well, at least as well as you can be. I want to let you know that I understand why you didn't want to come back to District 12, and that I don't hold that against you. There is nothing left here for you, and I know that. I know that your healing hand and warm heart will be appreciated wherever you are. _

_The reason I'm writing to you has to do with love. I know you and Dad had it, but I guess my question is….how do you KNOW? Like for sure, without a doubt? I know that during the first round of Hunger Games I 'pretended' to be in love with Peeta, but now I'm not so sure it was pretending. I felt things with him since then that I have never felt before. Like when he was in the Capitol's hands, and was saying all those things that were so not Peeta-like, all I felt was an aching in my chest. When he was finally rescued, I couldn't wait to get back into his arms. Even after he tried to kill me, I needed him. Is that what love is supposed to feel like? Or was that still me trying to protect him?_

_I hope to hear from you soon, I hope to sort this out as soon as possible. I love you Mom, and I'm sorry. I miss her too. Every minute of every day. _

_Katniss_

I close up the letter in an envelope and set it on the counter to be mailed the next day. I still don't think I'm ready to sleep upstairs in my bedroom yet, so I settler myself on the couch. In the morning, it's the usual routine with Greasy Sae. I help her make breakfast, but now we exchange some small talk as well. It feels nice to have her around, she always seemed like a second mother to me, and spending time and talking with her comes second nature. I spend the rest of the day mulling around the house, not really doing anything, and usually leaving the house for a few hours to wander the village while I try to sort out my thoughts.

A few days pass this way, and when I hear a pounding noise coming from my door one afternoon I am perplexed. I assume it's Haymitch, drunkenly knocking on my door for whatever reason, and take my time getting to it. When I open the door, however, instead of being greeted by a drunken victor, I see Peeta. And he is fuming, pacing around, unable to stand still. When I give him a confused look, he bursts.

"How did you not even think of me? I waited for you, wishing you would finally show up and show me something real, but instead you were here wallowing in your sorrows." The defeated look in his eyes kills me. Again, my voice deceives me and no words arise from my lips. As he turns and walks away I hear him say "I was right before, you ARE a piece of work."

Ouch. Was that MY Peeta talking or the Capitol Peeta? The fact that I can't see the difference upsets me. I call his name as I run after him. "Peeta! Wait! I.."

I try to go to him, but he stops me. He grabs my wrists and hold them tight. Too tight. I watch him in horror as he raises one hand to hit my face, and before I can even flinch he crumbles to the ground. " Just go." I hear him say. "Please, just go." He is pleading this time.


	3. Chapter 3

Before I start this chapter, I want to send a huge THANK YOU out to Trance Starr for reviewing BOTH chapters, I really appreciate what you have to say. Also, a thank you to all my followers, it feels so great whenever I get one J

**Chapter 3**

This time I won't leave him. I lower myself next to him and move my hands to cup his face and then I move his head so that his eyes meet mine. They are more black than usual, but I'm not afraid. Peeta will always be Peeta, and his will to remain himself will never truly falter. His eyes are less dilated than when I kissed him in the pipes, and I decide to take the same approach as I did then, kissing him full on the lips.

It takes 2 seconds before he responds, and when he does, he is kissing me more aggressively than ever before. His hands move to my back and pulls me closer to him until there is no more space between us. I move my hands from his face to his hair, and we stay this way, kissing each other like we will never be able to again until we run out of breath. When we finally surface, I'm able to say what I've been trying to tell him since he strode through Haymitch's door that day "Please, don't leave me."

Peeta gives me a confused and pained expression, and without a word, slowly stands up, never dropping his gaze, he turns and walks away.

It takes me a good minute before I can even register what just happened. Peeta came to my house extremely upset with me. Then I went after him, he almost hit me, and then we kissed. I asked him not to leave me and he just walked away. So much for my new outlook on life. I drag myself back inside and onto my couch to resume my life of nothingness so I don't have to feel anything anymore.

The morning light wakes me up, and I take in my surroundings. It's later in the morning, and Greasy Sae left out some breakfast for me. I shuffle to the kitchen and help myself to a plate of fresh fruit and a muffin. I go back to the couch and sit down. I set my plate down and pick up the muffin. A muffin makes me think of a bakery, and a bakery makes me think of Peeta. Suddenly, I'm not so hungry. How long will it be before I stop associating things with Peeta? It's inevitable that I will eat baked goods probably daily now that I don't have anyone to worry about but myself, and plenty of money to spend. I can now afford anything that I want to eat, and no doubt Greasy Sae, who has been buying my food for me, thinks I would want plenty of the stuff since I never had the chance to before. I set the muffin back down, unable to continue my train of thought. Peeta not being a part of my life hurts, and it's just not something I'm ready to face right now.

I zone out for a while and come back to reality eventually after a few hours. It seems like I spend way to much time doing this now. Wasting my time trapped in my own mind. When I look out the window I am startled by a blonde head moving across it for a second. I blink and it's gone already. I get up and walk to the door, take a deep breath, and open it. There on the mat is a note attached to some cookies. I pick it up and bring it back inside, curious but still scared at the same time. Ever since Snow left that rose in my room any surprise always feel frightening. I take the cookies to the counter in the kitchen and sit down on a stool. Next I rip open the letter, trying to be gentle at first but ending up just ripping the envelope apart. Is it from my mother already? I didn't think so, that would be really fast. Who then? I unfold the paper and find:

_Katniss_

_I'm so sorry about the way I reacted yesterday. _

_I don't know how to sort out the feelings in my head. I miss you, that much I do know. Please try to be patient with me. Maybe you would like to have dinner sometime? It doesn't even have to be just me and you, anyone you want can come. Even Haymitch. _

_Peeta_

_P.S. I left you a surprise in the yard. I hope you like them. _

I'm sure the look on my face right now is pretty confused. I dart to the door and swing it open, looking around, and then I spot them. Primrose bushes, two of them, under each window. They are beautiful, and tears unwillingly flood my eyes. I feel my feet move as I go to touch one of them ever so gingerly, as if I think they will break at the slightest contact. I love them so much, even though it reminds me of Prim, I feel hope and joy when I look at them, like she's part of the plant and she is here with me still. I stand there in a trance for a while, and hardly notice that someone is watching me.


End file.
